Nintendo Officially Partners with Illumination for New Mario Movie

To wrap up their financial briefing this morning in Japan, Nintendo officially confirmed their long rumored partnership with Illumination to produce an animated Super Mario Brothers movie. No details or proposed release window were given, merely a confirmation of the project's existence. It has however been confirmed that Shigeru Miyamoto will be co-producing the film, alongside Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri.

Illumination is perhaps best known for their work on the popular Despicable Me franchise. The project is being co-financed by both Nintendo and Universal, with whom Nintendo recently partnered to create theme park attractions at Universal Studios.

Meh. I would have preferred Blue Sky studios, since their Peanuts revival was excellent and did a fantastic job of translating 2D sensibilities to 3D.

You can do worse than Illumination, though. I'm sure whatever they put out will be typically obnoxious, but will overall be fine.

Illumination is a perfect match (I'd prefer it was Disney... but that'll have to wait till Disney does the buyout ;) *) because Illumination is all about quality animation on a modest budget and high profit return.They can turn the Rabbids into Minions, and make how many billions off the the 4 movies alone?

D1 made $543M on a $69M budgetD2 made $970M on a $76M budgetD3 made $1.03B on a $80M budget (highest ever budget from studio)Minions made $1.15B on a $74M budget

See the pattern on the budget. SiNG and TSLoP all had practically identical budgets.They sound like the perfect Nintendo partner, maximizing quality on a modest budget for maximum returns... or basically minimizing financial risk in hopes of a hit.

*I wish for Disney because then you know it would have been all but a guaranteed hit, with the highest quality in everything from production to animation and marketing, but the cost to partner was above the frugalness of Nintendo's spending habits.

Now I'm just wondering if they take a LEGO Movie/Smash Bros approach? their all toysAre they gonna go FULL MCU and do the Mushroom Kingdom Hearts kinda approach? #itsallconnectedor will just be a Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom stand alone....? just a videogame movie... or a fever dream/acid trip gone sideways....

personally, I'm hoping for the middle one. Nintendo and Illumination could be tapping a healthy vein there.

edit: Also just had the thought that this might not be all animated.... they could go the Roger Rabbit/Smurfs route... cartoons in the real world but no one wants that.

Meh. I would have preferred Blue Sky studios, since their Peanuts revival was excellent and did a fantastic job of translating 2D sensibilities to 3D.

You can do worse than Illumination, though. I'm sure whatever they put out will be typically obnoxious, but will overall be fine.

Illumination is a perfect match (I'd prefer it was Disney... but that'll have to wait till Disney does the buyout ;) *) because Illumination is all about quality animation on a modest budget and high profit return.They can turn the Rabbids into Minions, and make how many billions off the the 4 movies alone?

D1 made $543M on a $69M budgetD2 made $970M on a $76M budgetD3 made $1.03B on a $80M budget (highest ever budget from studio)Minions made $1.15B on a $74M budget

See the pattern on the budget. SiNG and TSLoP all had practically identical budgets.They sound like the perfect Nintendo partner, maximizing quality on a modest budget for maximum returns... or basically minimizing financial risk in hopes of a hit.

*I wish for Disney because then you know it would have been all but a guaranteed hit, with the highest quality in everything from production to animation and marketing, but the cost to partner was above the frugalness of Nintendo's spending habits.

Now I'm just wondering if they take a LEGO Movie/Smash Bros approach? their all toysAre they gonna go FULL MCU and do the Mushroom Kingdom Hearts kinda approach? #itsallconnectedor will just be a Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom stand alone....? just a videogame movie... or a fever dream/acid trip gone sideways....

personally, I'm hoping for the middle one. Nintendo and Illumination could be tapping a healthy vein there.

edit: Also just had the thought that this might not be all animated.... they could go the Roger Rabbit/Smurfs route... cartoons in the real world but no one wants that.

Like I said, Illumination's fine from a commercial standpoint. I'm just not in love with anything they've put out. Blue Sky, likewise, had the mediocre Ice Age movies, but they really nailed that Peanuts film & I wish they got more work.

Also, since they're owned by Fox, under the Disney acquisition they'd become a Disney studio. :P

I wonder how they could tease the other Nintendo universes in a Mario movie. Like maybe Rosalina is in it and she's flying through space past a star shaped planet? Or Peach mentions hanging out with a Princess who has a knight that doesn't speak. Or just Donkey is there.

Then they could do a Metroid movie and a side character is having a throw away conversation about "the racing event of the year!".

broodwars, it's not like Blue Sky doesn't get offers. They put out about 1 movie a year, the last year they didn't have a movie was 2010. so they get plenty of work. Looking at Wikipedia shows they put out about the same as Pixar (Blue Sky has release 12 movies since 2002, Pixar has done 15 in the same time span. Keep in mind though that Blue Sky has about 500 employees while Pixar has 1,200).

Illumination does a good job with movies, so I have faith in them doing this well.